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Survival of the Fittest

A while back our Nan turned ninety-three and we celebrated with pizza, cake and balloons. As parting gifts to the boys, they each received a lovely birthday balloon. As soon as we got home I tied two, plastic dinosaur spoons on the ends of them to prevent them from launching up into the highest peaks of our cathedral ceilings in our front room (this is considered no man’s land for balloons).

Works like a charm (mostly). A few days in one of the unfortunate balloons detaches from the spoon and creeps up to an unreachable ceiling crevice. The second balloon survives a long time.

Soon, this balloon detaches as well from its spoon and rises to the ceiling. Not the crazy, never-going-to-reach-it ceiling but the one in our family room. You know what? I don’t care. I’m too tired (from being sick all week) to stand on a chair and get it. The boys don’t seem to mind and I let it go. What goes up eventually must come down, right?

We are in the front room where they are playing Transformers (T.Puzzle is lucky to get one; Full Speed gets the rest in typical, big brother fashion). We hear a strange, repetitive hitting sound in the other room. Come to find out, the silly balloon is caught up in our ceiling fan and is being beat senseless. It takes me awhile to figure out how to get it down. Every time I position myself on a couch or chair to grab it, it is already long gone. Somehow, on one of its wild, bobbing turns I manage to grab it and pull seventeen muscles running along my rib cage in the process. Ouch.

I’m so annoyed with this balloon I toss it in our game room. I figure it’s off of the main living area, the boys won’t fiddle with it and I can regain a semblance of peace. Nope.

Guess what gets caught in the game room fan? Only this time to get down the unrelenting balloon I have to get a running start and leap for it. Try to picture me leaping. I know, funny right? I’m no ballerina that’s for damn sure. This time I pull one hundred and seventeen muscles all over my entire body. Ouch.

I now have the errant balloon in custody and have placed it in lockdown (really it’s the laundry room but there are zero fans in there). If an inanimate object can outsmart me for that length of time, how am I going to outwit, outplay, outlast (used to love Survivor) my boys? I have no idea. Unfortunately, I’m not made of helium. I can’t float away when I’m having a tough day. As a parent I’m going to have to be like a ceiling fan. I’ll have to keep coming at them over and over and over. I’m in it, to win it.